In recent years, climate change concerns, declining panel costs, new financing options, governmental incentives, and other factors have driven a rapid rise in the installation of distributed renewable energy generation (REG) systems (i.e., systems that generate energy using renewable resources such as solar, wind, hydropower, etc.) at residential and non-residential sites. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, in particular, have been very popular REG systems.
In response to the increasing market adoption of residential and commercial solar in the United States and elsewhere, and in order to address safety concerns for fire fighters and other first responders who may have to get on the roof of a home or other structure that has PV modules that are actively generating electricity, various national, state and local electric codes have considered adopting requirements for a “rapid shutdown function.” Such a function in PV systems is supposed to render the system harmless within a matter of seconds. Although some solutions have been proposed, improvements to the rapid shutdown functionality of PV systems are needed. In addition, the modern PV systems may incorporate battery storage for efficient utilization of PV energy that may also need to be safely operated by the fire fighters and other first responders as they are meant to provide emergency back-up service in case of grid outage.